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For now, most imports to the United States arrive at Pacific Coast ports, then travel by train or truck to the rest of the country. With the Panama Canal’s long-anticipated expansion scheduled for completion next year, the Florida Chamber sees the Port of Miami grabbing a big chunk of imports that will be redirected to Atlantic ports.

Conway sees a couple of reasons the job impact for Florida will be muted:

Intense competition from other ports. Companies looking to ship goods to the eastern half of the country will send their containers past Miami and up the coast. “The big shippers are primarily aligning themselves with Norfolk, Baltimore and Charleston,” Conway said.

Robots are taking over the heavy lifting. The Port of Miami certainly stands to see higher cargo volumes as a result of the Panama Canal widening — but increasing automation over the past decade will mute the job gains. “A lot of this is automated,” Conway said. “That’s a big fallacy in a lot of these economic forecasts. A lot of these Ph.D.s have been too lazy to go back and look at labor trends. None of them have adjusted their models for what’s really going on in distribution.”